Joe Pinion

Pinion was born in Yonkers. He attended Colgate University on an athletic grant, playing football.[2]

Pinion was a youth development director at a Bronx health center for some time. He later became a political commentator and appeared on news networks such as CNN.[3] He eventually became the host of "Saturday Agenda" on the channel Newsmax.[4] He is also involved in climate change advocacy,[5] working with the organization RepublicEn, a right-leaning environmentalist advocacy organization.[6]

Prior to running for office, Pinion was Chair of the Conservative Color Coalition and was the Outreach Director for the New York Young Republican Federation.[6]

In 2018, Pinion announced his candidacy for New York's 90th assembly district, which was vacated after Shelley Mayer won an open seat to the state senate.[3] He received the Republican and Conservative party nominations, but lost the election to Nader Sayegh.[7]

In 2022, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Pinion announced that he was running for the United States Senate in a video highlighting Martin Luther King Jr.[8] At the Republican convention in Nassau County, he received the party designation.[9] He unsuccessfully challenged Democratic incumbent Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader.

Pinion ultimately received 2.5 million votes statewide, winning 42.8% of the vote to Schumer's 56.8%. Despite a significant funding disparity (Pinion spent only $500,000 on campaign advertising, against Schumer's $38 million), Pinion performed better than any Republican candidate has in a New York US Senate race since Rick Lazio in 2000, and lost to Schumer by a narrower margin than any Republican candidate has since Schumer beat Senator Al D'Amato in 1998. Pinion's performance was part of a "red wave" in the 2022 New York state elections, which saw an overperformance for Republicans in statewide and Congressional races.

• Appearances on C-SPAN